Obama Nominates Fern to Supreme Court

Apologies to the Honorable Merrick Garland for the comparison to a moisture-loving houseplant. I’m sure he has more going on upstairs than your average Nephrolepis exaltata. It’s just that he was not the most inspiring pick in a year when the Democrats really need to inspire the base. The choice of Garland was likely intended to highlight the GOP’s absurd obstructionism. Perhaps he’s the only pick Dems think can make it through the blockade, somehow. While he would almost certainly be much better than any Republican nominee, it’s not clear to me that the “reasonable bipartisan” approach Obama often favors actually gets results at the polls, or in the court of public opinion.

Maybe the “reasonable bipartisan” approach isn’t designed to get results at the polls. Maybe President Obama governs in the way he thinks a President should govern. After all he’s been the President he promised to be in 2008 (if you look past the meaningless rhetoric and what he actually promised on policy and his votes as a Senator) no more and no less: a wall street friendly warmonger.

He certainly benefits those who have paid for him. To be clear there is a difference between Democrats like President Obama and Republicans: Democrats serve the interests of the wealthy who want to set up a system where they are secure in their ability to acquire wealth indefinitely and Republicans serve the interests of the wealthy who want to acquire as much wealth as possible right now.

There are effects of this difference to those who aren’t wealthy and those effects are important but the choice between a Democrat and a Republican is, for most people, largely a choice of which group of privileged people does one most want to serve. As long as Democrats can effectively use fear of the Republicans to scare liberals into voting for them and Republicans can effectively use fear of the Democrats to scare conservatives into voting for them, there doesn’t have to be a lot of policy that benefits those who aren’t wealthy.